TempleNoble
by Intrepid Inkweaver
Summary: My name is Eugene Temple-Noble. My life was pretty dull until a certain American informed me that there were aliens trying to kidnap my mother...
1. Chapter 1

My name is Eugene Wilfred Temple-Noble. People generally just call me Gene. I'm nothing special. I live in Chiswick, a few blocks away from my parents. I work as an accountant for a large agency that sells machine parts. Dad always said that I inherited my talent with numbers from my mom, along with my attitude and green eyes. I've often been told that I'm just like her, just a bit quieter about it. Mom doesn't think I'm just like her. She always says that I'm too much like Dad. I don't think she really wants me to be like her—despite all her bravado, I don't think she likes herself all that much.

Most of the time, Mom is loud, blunt, and bossy. She doesn't care what's happening in the world outside of her own life. She's always been like that, as long as I can remember. At least, most of the time. There have been a few times throughout my life that I've seen something different in her. She'll get really quiet and just sort of stare off into space, as though she can see something that no one else can, something that's not there anymore. Once I went up to her and tugged on her sleeve. She turned to me and it seemed as though she wasn't really seeing me. It was as though she thought I was someone else.

"I thought I was going to be with you forever. The Doctor and Donna in the TARDIS. Traveling…" She trailed off and her eyes suddenly focused and she snapped back to reality. When she saw me she smiled and said, "Oh, must have zoned out there for a moment! Go get ready for supper, Gene!" When I asked her what a TARDIS was, and mentioned that she had just said it, she told me to quit being ridiculous and set the table.

For some reason, her words wouldn't leave me alone. I asked Dad about them and he told me that I must have misheard her, or perhaps even imagined it. I knew I didn't. When I asked Grandma about it—I wasn't able to just let it go—she froze and stared at me for a moment. After that, she just turned back to the dishes and told me to finish my homework. Finally, I decided to ask Great-Grandpa Wilf.

His reaction was a bit different from everyone else that I had asked. He didn't ignore me or brush me off or tell me to finish my chores. When I asked him, he looked shocked for a second before looking around and pressing a finger to his lips as though afraid that someone might be listening. He beckoned me closer until he could whisper in my ear. So quietly I could barely hear him, he said,

"Watch for the man with the big blue box. He'll be coming back someday, I just know it. He always does." He wouldn't say any more than that, and after a while of puzzling over his words, I put them off on his old age. I never thought they would really hold any meaning.

Of course, I was wrong.


	2. Chapter 2

A/N ~Enter our favorite immortal Captain. Review, please! Feedback makes me smile like the sun, dance like a fool and all that. :)

The day it started was the day the American started following me. He didn't seem to care too much if I knew he was there. He was wearing an old style military coat that flared out around him with the wind and whenever I tried to leave his sight, he ran to catch up. Despite the fact that it was probably pretty obvious that I had seen him following me, he made no attempt to approach me or talk to me. When I stopped, he stopped. Finally, I turned around and began to walk towards him, fully expecting him to turn and walk away from me.

Instead, he stopped and leaned against a wall, watching me approach. When I reached him, I asked (more politely than I really wanted to) "Excuse me sir, are you following me?"

He smiled and answered, "Yes. My name is Captain Jack Harkness. I need to talk to you. It's about your mother, Donna Temple-Noble."

"How do you know my mother?"

"I met her a long time ago through a…mutual friend," he answered. My eyebrows narrowed at him. I'd definitely never seen him before and he didn't look old enough to have hung out with my mum before she married Dad.

Never-the-less, I said, "Why do you need to talk to me? Why not go talk to her?"

"It's a…sensitive matter. Can we talk someplace more private?" he asked, looking around over his shoulders as though expecting to see someone following him even as he'd been following me.

I gestured for him to lead the way, and he took me to a small coffee shop that was nearly empty. He gave a brilliant smile to the waitress and asked for two cups of coffee. I didn't bother to mention that I rarely drank coffee. I didn't trust the look of the place; they probably didn't have good tea anyway.

As I took the first few sips of the surprisingly good coffee, Captain Harkness pinned his sharp blue gaze on me. "I think your mother is in danger," he said quietly.

Concerned, I asked, "Why do you think that?"

He sighed and took a sip of coffee, seeming as though he was trying to decide what to say next. Finally, he said, "There was an organization named Torchwood that existed up until a few years before you born. They were created by Queen Victoria to defend Earth from alien threats. They had a lot of alien equipment that was much more advanced than anything Earth had yet come up with. One of the sensors picked up an odd concentration of temporal energy focused on one person." He paused and met my eyes again. "Your mother has timelines converging all around her—more than any one person I've ever seen before."

"And you know this because…" I was more than a little skeptical. This day seemed to be getting stranger and stranger. I didn't let him finish though. "Get to the point. What am I supposed to do about any of this? I'm an accountant, not a temporal physicist. Besides, I'm half inclined to believe you're mad."

"Only half?" he said with a grin. "We're doing well then. Your mother would have clapped me back to last Thursday already if it were her." I hid a smile at this. It at least seemed as though he had told the truth about knowing my mum.

"To tell the truth, I don't know what's coming after her. I've never encountered anything like them before, and that's saying something. All I'm asking you to do is to get her out of town for a week. I've found a way to mask her trail, so as long as she's not in Chiswick, or anywhere in the area, I should be able to get rid of them without too much trouble."

"Why should I believe you? Why should I do what you're telling me?"

"You believe in aliens don't you?"

"Of course. Everyone does nowadays. That doesn't mean their out chasing people who have never done anything to warrant their attention," I replied.

He chuckled. "Your mother has done much more than just catch their passing attention. There're a lot of things she's done that not even she knows about anymore. That's a story for another day, though. Think of it this way: if you do what I ask and I turn out to be a nut-job, then you'll have left town for a week on vacation and come back, no harm done. If I'm not a nut-job and I'm telling the truth, then not only will you've saved your mother's life, you'll have saved a lot more beside that. What harm could it do?"

I studied him quietly for a few moments, searching for some sort of motive, or a spark of insanity. I saw none. I also considered his proposal. I couldn't see any particular downsides to it—except perhaps having to take off work—so there was really no reason I shouldn't just take mum and dad out of town for a few days.

Finally, I sighed in resignation. "Fine, I'll do it. I'll take her out of town for a few days. Will she be safe after that?"

His grin lit up the room. "I will do everything in my power to keep her safe," he said. He reached out and shook my hand. "It was very nice to meet you, Gene. I have to get going now. If all goes well, you won't be seeing me again."

With a whip of his ridiculous coat, he was gone, and I was left wondering exactly what I had agreed to do.


End file.
